Evans, who is representing himself at trial, is charged with killing five teenage boys on Aug. 20, 1978, burning them alive in an abandoned Newark house in what had long been classified as a missing persons case.

Lawson, whose 16-year-old brother, Michael McDowell, was among the victims, has said she always suspected Evans, despite the lack of any physical evidence against him. She was 11 when he disappeared.

Evans, 58, and his cousin, Philander Hampton, 54, were charged with five counts of murder in March 2010. Hampton has since struck a deal with the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and will testify against Evans at trial. Evans, who is out on bail, vehemently denies the charges against him.

Over the course of four hours of testimony Monday, Lawson and a half-dozen other relatives identified Evans as the last person they saw the boys with that August day 33 years ago.

Evans collected the boys in his green pick-up, they said, after promising them work moving boxes. Evans, whom everyone in the neighborhood referred to as "Big Man," has said he had just purchased a home, and needed help moving. He dropped the boys off later that night, he has said, though no one has corroborated that.

One by one, the witnesses all identified Evans in court, pointing to the 6-foot-4-inch, 260-pound defendant.

Authorities say Evans, a mason by trade with no prior criminal history, killed the boys as payback for them stealing a pound of marijuana from his home the day before. The bodies of McDowell, Randy Johnson and Alvin Turner, all 16, and Melvin Pittman and Ernest Taylor, both 17, were never found.

Jennifer Brown/The Star-LedgerTheresa Lawson testifies about the last time she saw her brother Michael McDowell, 16, in the trial of Lee Anthony Evans at the Essex County Courthouse in Newark.

Among the witnesses to testify Monday was Shavonne Beachum, who was just 7 years old at the time, but still remembers that afternoon.

Beachum said she helped her uncle, Randy Johnson, move some boxes for Evans earlier in the day.

"Big Man was telling us what to do. Directing people what to do," Beachum, now 40, said from the witness stand. But the mood grew tense, she said.

"Michael (McDowell) and Big Man were arguing in the house. Michael ran out of the house. Then Big Man yelled, ‘Go get him! Go get him!' " Beachum said. Evans eventually drove her back home, but the older boys stayed in the truck.

Rogers Taylor, 21 at the time, recalled watching his younger brother, Ernest Taylor, hop into the back of Evans’ beat-up green pick-up. "I seen all five of ‘em in the back of the truck," Taylor, now 54, testified Monday.

When it was Evans’ turn to cross-examine Taylor, he went on the offensive. He accused Taylor of stealing marijuana from at least two of the boys, and pointed to inconsistent statements Taylor made about the time different events took place.

Taylor denied stealing marijuana and said he had trouble remembering specific times that long ago but vividly recalled waking up on the morning of Aug. 21 to find out his brother was gone. A friend called him on the phone, he said. "Something bad happened," the friend told him. "Something bad."

The trial continues this morning with testimony expected from police investigators.